5 month old won’t take bottle!

[Firsttimemum455]

Hello,
My son is soon going to be 5 months old, has been exclusively breastfed until now and absolutely will not take a bottle. We have been trying for months with no luck - changing types of bottle, types of teats, time of day, who is offering the bottle etc but he absolutely will not take it. He is fine for it to sit in his mouth for a bit, but just pushes it around with his tongue and then eventually starts to cry.

I am desperate to get him to take a bottle as my milk supply is extremely low - he will not sleep now and is constantly trying to feed. We have tried him with a sippy cup and he seems happy to chew on it and the milk does come out that way for him, but he then immediately spits it all out.

Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated, I don’t know where to go from here!

My DD was like this until 7 months, I tried everything. All bottles and teats but nothing worked! But I went and got Asda cheap wideneck bottles, think they are a pack of 2 for £3. She took to them straight away, two days after trying them she was fully on bottles. She's now 9 months and takes bottles like nothing ever happened
Good luck op!

Thank you @GAW19 - I’ll definitely try these ones out. Really hoping one day it clicks for him and he can take one. Feeling pretty desperate right now as he’s definitely hungry but just won’t take one!

Mam ones worked when DD1 took an Avent bottle at 8 weeks, I mentally ticked “bottle” off the list, at 5 months when I tried again, same as you, point blank refused.

The mam one, she did take after a bit of persuasion - something about the valve being more similar to bf apparently.

Are you sure your milk supply is low? I definitely noticed at about 6mo my breasts were never 'full' but I think that has more to do with them regulating themselves and not a lack of milk. Also teething can make them pop on and off boob and whinge x

This happened to me too, in the end I got DS to take a bottle by adding abit of expressed milk to formula. Eventually was able to reduce the expressed milk and he takes formula on its own. It's a tough time so I empathise, my LO was very unsettled until I managed to get him on formula at 6 months.
Wish you luck OP x

@Rodent01 thank you for the tip, I’ll give these bottles a go too. Did you find a certain way of introducing the bottle (yourself or someone else etc) made any difference?

@Maltay yes it is definitely much lower, I have tried pumping to stimulate it again but virtually nothing comes out. I started my period yesterday so I wonder if that could be it? Hoping it returns but I have less today than I did yesterday.

@idontknowwhatimdoing88 we’ve just got some formula so I will give that ago with be mixed in. I’ve been trying just with expressed milk the last few months but maybe the change will help - fingers crossed.

Thank you all for the well wishes, keeping trying. Worried if worst comes to worst and he continues to refuse to eat what should we do? We’d need to take him in to the hospital? X

No problem, I hope something works soon for you. Do you have a point of contact for the health visitors? You could try calling them if you get really worried and then they would advise you on what to do. Or GP of course x